When Michelle’s brother was in town, they took a hike and her Casio Exilim EX-Z60 digital camera acted as body armor when she slipped on some loose rock. The good news is that it saved her from a piercing wound from a sharp rock. The bad news is that the rock felt obligated to pierce something and her little camera stepped up to the plate.

Note: I’ve linked to original versions of all pictures, so just click any photo for more detail.Note 2: All photos were taken with MY camera that I operated on last year.Disclaimer: The fact that this worked for me is mostly luck and the camera may even go up in flames in a week. Seriously, though, I’m a web developer, not an electrician, so proceed with your own camera at your own risk. You have been warned.Offer: Can’t stomach opening your hardware on your own? Contact me. I’m always looking for projects and I might just fix your camera, computer, etc. for free just so I can post about it.

Wow… Pretty, isn’t it. The camera would still take photos, but what’s the point of a digital camera if you can’t see the photos and delete the blurry ones on the spot. As always, I was eager to accept the challenge of replacing the broken screen with a working one.

Preparation: Have your tools ready
Oddly, I don’t have a lot of tools. It’s probably because I lose things. I noted that I would need a teeny tiny screwdriver, so I grabbed an eyeglasses repair kit on my way home for $1.07 total. I also found that I needed tweezers to get the new screen plugged in (more on that later). Since I wear glasses and wanted a clean screen, I used my lens cleaning cloth to wipe down the exposed new screen. These three things are about all you should need.

Step One: Find a working screen
I jumped on ebay, and took my chances on a camera listed as “not sure why it wont turn on”. I dropped $16.51 including shipping, so I was ok with the possibility that the screen might be bad. Luckily, when I swapped out the battery, I found that its screen was fine. The camera made a lot of noise, though. I think someone sat on it. Look at how bent it was:

Step Two: Take apart the cameras
Casio REALLY crammed everything into this tiny camera. When working on any complex electronics, always be patient and gentle with it. These things are packed with sensitive parts and cables that you don’t want to break. You should also note where screws come from and how things go together. Whenever I pull something apart, I separate the screws on a piece of paper and write where they came from. To get started, just remove the following screws in this suggested order:

With the camera turned off, remove the battery and memory card and set them aside. Then start with the 6 screws on the bottom.

There’s another screw in the battery compartment. Might as well get that one now.

Remove the side plate screws.

There are two on each side.

Now remove the side plate and get the two screws hiding under it.

And don’t forget the two on the other side.

Carefully remove the front of the camera

Now carefully remove the back of the camera

Unscrew this small board screw to loosen up the board a little.

Step Three: Remove the screens and install the good screen on the good camera
This is a real treat. You’re going to have to be really careful and pretty patient to pull this off. It took me a while, but I finally got it. Before you start, pay attention to where the wires and ribbon cable are running. Also, you’ll need to stretch the camera parts open a little to get in there. Just be very very careful to not break anything or disconnect other cables on your working camera. We don’t care as much about the broken camera (the one we’re stealing the good screen from).

The display component is sandwiched between the display backing (which is glued in place) and an outer metal frame. Remove the metal frame and set it aside.

Now pry the glued backing away from the camera as shown. Make sure to watch it now that it’ll tug at the wires and the ribbon cable.

Now carefully remove the display backing from the display screen. There will be a couple thin sheets behind the screen. Leave them there on both cameras.

In the center of this image, you can see where the ribbon cable plugs into the board. You’ll want to carefully make some room to get in there and then see the next photo.

To unplug the cable, you’ll want to lift the black plastic piece on top of it with the tip of your screwdriver to unlock it. The cable will easily slide out when it’s unlocked. This picture shows it away from other camera parts with the ribbon cable unplugged.

If you forgot which was the bad screen, hold it up to the light and you’ll know.

Now reverse the steps to get the good screen into your camera and the camera back together. One of the hard parts is plugging in that ribbon cable. I grabbed tweezers from the bathroom and used them to guide it in and it worked out very well. Just be careful to not rip that ribbon cable. If something doesn’t fit right, take a good look and try again. Don’t force anything you’re unsure of. When you’re done, you should have a whole camera again:

You’ll notice that my wife now has a two-tone camera. This is because the plastic that guards the actual screen also broke, which will be the case for most broken screens. When I put the camera back together, I used the back panel from the ebay camera rather than prying up the plastic window from it and re-gluing it to her camera. You can also just buy a camera of the same color from ebay. Personally, I like the duo-tone franken-camera, and so does she. But does it work? See for yourself.

And what should you do with all the spare parts? I threw them in a zip lock bag and set them aside. You never know when another part could fail in your camera and you might need something from these left-overs.

That’s it. If this article was helpful or you have questions, let me know.

About the author

Joe Colburn is a software engineer specializing in PHP and a technology enthusiast. Always eager to dive into new and exciting things, Joe writes about anything technology related news and products that he thinks you will also be excited about. Find Joe Colburn on Google+ or by any of the links below.